Saturday, April 9, 2011

Oh dear god. Oh dear god, Randall. Why, oh why, did you have to do this? I mean, I was perfectly fine. Xkcd wasn’t good, but it wasn’t unnaturally horrible. But now, now Randy, you’ve done this.

The first panel:

I can imagine people having this conversation. It sets things up, we’re not confused about what’s happening. But it’s so…strange. It seems like the guy isn’t conveying any emotion about his arm being hurt, for some reason. The guy seems like a shell of a person. Maybe the fact that he's soulless is part of the joke. But I doubt it...

In addition, the doctor asking if there’s any pain is kind of silly, she is a doctor and would know because of the chart stuffs, and also because the guy is fucking clutching his arm. It seems like the doctor is actually just a person in a labcoat playing doctor or something.

Second panel:

It’s been pointed out that the question most doctors ask is “How would you rate the pain, on a scale from one to ten, based on the worst pain you’ve experienced” instead of “can imagine.” Although this alone is a slight flaw, the joke would've been much funnier if “experienced” was used instead of "can imagine." Hell, let me get a crack at this.

Sure it’d be better if I cut some specific bits out, used Humor Sans, but eh. Someone more give-a-damny might do better.

So, missed opportunities based on misremembering the question/not caring.

Also, ZOMG MEGAN OUT OF NOWHERE.

About the third panel:

Some people seem to think this isn’t necessary. I believe that it’s designed to put emphasis on the “Worst pain I can imagine.” part of the line. Sure, nobody would ever actually say that, but I’m going to go ahead and say that this was a good idea. Try shooping that panel out: I’m sure you’ll find that you won’t get the joke on the first read through if you do that.

So, I disagree with the people who hate this panel. It isn’t natural, but clearly, neither is Randall-insert.

About the last panel:

Doctors do not act like this. It would be more natural if Megan would have said something like “Randall, honey, say getting hit by a motorcycle is a 10,” "Come on. Don't bring your troubled past into this..." or “Randall, I’m leaving you. I’ve never really loved you.” (HAHA MEGAN JOKE I LOVE THIS.) I know it’s “xkcd style,” but it still kind of sucks. It seems like the characters step out of their roles, and that isn’t good. Characters should always be in their roles, at all times.

Why haven’t I seen that criticism before? Have I just missed it or something? Characters should always be in-character.

And now, things I can't be assed to put alone:

1) What’s with those white gaps between some panels and not others? It seems like the borders are all messed up and strange. I’m thinking Randall is being lazy. (I guess he IS lazy if he draws a stick figure webcomic, but still…)

2) Regarding panel 4 and onward: Hey, doesn’t his arm hurt? Why’d he stop clutching it? He can move it to his mouth and everything? Come on….Characters need to be in character AT ALL FUCKING TIMES.

...Randall, you're a famous webcomic-ist. You're a professional now. Fucking act like one.

239 comments:

".....It’s been pointed out that the question most doctors ask is “How would you rate the pain, on a scale from one to ten, based on the worst pain you’ve experienced” instead of “can imagine.”....."

Quite incorrect my no doubt Cyrillic alphabet using friend. The question most asked by us doctors is: "Can you pay?" Followed closely by: "If not will you sue if I grope your genitals while you are sedated?"

I didn't find this comic too bad.. It could be the fact that I've been to doctors/hospitals more times than I can count, but I have no issue with the doctor/nurse's dialogue (this seems a lot more like the screening a nurse will perform before the doctor comes in, though a nurse really has no reason to wear a lab coat other than there is no other way for the comic to denote a medical professional). In the first panel the nurse is asking if there is any pain because they don't infer things based on what they see -- that would be terrible. They go off of what the patient reports to them. Maybe it would be more natural for her to ask, "Is your arm hurting?" but it's not terrible as it is. Also, doctors and nurses are in love with a 1-10 scale for pain, and I have heard "the worst pain you can think of" a number of times.. but in all honesty, they can usually ask people to rate pain on a scale of 1-10 and they would know what is meant by that. But of course for the sake of the joke the character misinterprets/thinks too deeply about it. As for the nurse's dialogue in the last panel, sure it's not something most people would say in real life, but it's a comic, where characters can say things like that with impunity (sometimes). It's an aside to Megan, probably in a low voice or whisper that the guy isn't supposed to hear.. and I'm sure there are people out there who would respond this way, as insensitive as it may seem.

So, I don't think this is that bad of a comic, as far as xkcd goes. On a scale of 1 to the worst xkcd I can imagine... I don't know, it's probably 2 or something.

".....a nurse really has no reason to wear a lab coat other than there is no other way for the comic to denote a medical professional). In the first panel the nurse is asking if there is any pain because....."

I see that it never dawned on you that the female in the labcoat could be a doctor?

You are, without doubt, a fucking sexist cunt. And no mistake!Drawing a traditional 'Nurse's Cap' is an adequate way of representing a Nurse.

ANYWAY. Robbo replace the img srcs with http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/7736/firstdi.jpg , http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/2249/secondp.jpg , http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/1917/painratingawesome.png , http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/5734/third.jpg , http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/2858/lastu.jpgrespectively and everyone should be able to go home happy. I'm pretty sure you could have worked that out for yourself tbh but hey

Dearest Ann Apolis,Do not base your concept of a person's stardom on whether or not I have heard of them.I am very much ignorant of your pop culture.I was 15 years old before I became aware of The Beatles - or even Rock and Roll music itself. And that was the mid 1990s by the way.I know my Mozart though.

I thought that might go over your head :( Explain the joke corner: I was implying that you have an encyclopaedic* knowledge of child pornography and therefore if Suiseiseki was a Lolicon star you would have heard of them.

No, it stands for "convoluted attempts to maintain that 'loli' doesn't refer to Lolita and that it's only the perversion of the masses that try to claim it has any relationship with the sexualisation of children."

I have been asked more than once to rate pain with 10 being "the worst pain [I] can imagine". And I actually do have sort of the same problem as the guy in the comic (without the weird cringing), in that I imagine 10 to be something like "third degree burns all over my body," which kind of messes up the scale. A more useful scale is the one that tags on descriptors to the numbers, such as "the pain is severe enough to interfere with everyday activities." They had a scale like that at a rehab hospital I worked at. Then there is the scale with the smiley and frown-y faces attached- that one is amusing.

Anon 5:56 PM spammed DESU because Suiseiseki is a character from the manga Rozen Maiden who places unusual emphasis on the Japanese copula "desu". He was having a laugh at all you people floundering around that name's origin, which would be known to about anyone who was on 4chan during the time it was popular as a meme.

This comic was extremely bad. Characters forgetting their roles is right. Doctors wouldn't neglect a patient in order to slag them off to a girlfriend, who by the way really does not need to be there, whose presence should have been established in the first panel unless that would spoil some kind of joke.

Also, just want to mention the art. I think he needs to be careful in depicting expressions that place a stick figure's hands on his blank face. In the classic posture of contemplation we understand he's placing one hand under his chin, but in the next panel he clasps both hands in terror to the same place. Certainly not where the mouth would be, which is the facial feature I expect terrified hands to clasp.

Dear Aquarians Love To Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I just really don't understand. I just got my first computer, and I was looking at websites and I thought xkcd was pretty funny, and so was this blog, but I don't understand why you do it anyway. I'm ten so I get most of the stuff on the internet, but also a bit autistic. Please, why do you do this? Just for fun? Is it an official ranking thing?Gertie

At first I felt as if it may have been a nice hat-tip to Lovecraftian dread-horror, but I don't think I can give Randall that much credit. Were he really going for such a reference, he wouldn't have been so subtle. Oh, well.

@Anonymous 8:19 your explanation was unnecessary considering the post immediately preceding the DESU one. You seem proud of your 4chan experience though, which is funny. The only notable thing about 4chan has been that it somehow managed to be even worse than Something Awful.

While I don't understand the most recent comic at all... the addition of "in Cambridge, MA" is completely unnecessary. There are without a doubt numerous cities that have a Rogers St, so there's no reason for Randy to include the city where he lives. He's just projecting, "Hey everyone, I saw this street sign the other day and thought of this hilarious joke!"

It's a stupid joke based on the idea that you get your porn name by combining the name of the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet. I guess the pet name goes first, traditionally, so he at least got that right. So basically this kid's porn name would be Mister Rogers. Because that GUARANTEES that the kid won't get into porn.

Also the nerds who read xkcd feel fond nostalgia for Mister Rogers. You can pretty much throw everything else out and write the words "WHO ELSE LOVES MISTER ROGERS" and it sums up the comic.

884 is actually somewhat clever. The execution is absolute shit, though, as the "joke" is excruciatingly opaque to the extent that I doubt most people would get it fast enough to find it humorous. When it takes you five minutes to figure out what the joke is it doesn't matter how good it is; it won't be funny. That said, I got a good chuckle out of the alt text.

You know, sometimes... when I get horny... I just want to fuck and fuck until my eyes start to bleed. It seems like nothing will make the lust go away. When this happens it's important to remember that if you just find a cock big enough, and believe in yourself, you can always achieve satisfaction.

I guess the reason must be that I'm not that knowledgable about naming conventions in the porn business. On the other hand, I do know a couple of porn star names, and none of them sound like "first pet's name + street you've been living in".

Can someone clear this up for me?

And then... why does he say "kid", when he apparently is only talking about a girl? Because I think the porn industry is actually cheeky enough to name a male porn actor "Mr. Rogers" without the need of a convoluted background involving the pet cat and the street name.

In any case, Randall fails hard. But I'm sure it was very, very funny in his head.

Guest reviews like these are what give this site a reputation as for needlessly nitpicking even the more innocuous XKCD strips (such as 883). I guess that's not a bad thing, though, because then more ardent XKCD defenders show up, Rob and Raven and Ann and everyone else mocks them roundly, and a good time is had by all. Except the XKCD defenders.

Timofei: True, but you can never be sure, he's trying to depict a porn actor after all.And damn it, even if I accept that naming convention, I can't accept that they wouldn't change the pet's name to the gender-appropriate version. So it really should be a guy.

Argh. This comic upsets me. Of course, the xkcd forumites ignore the awfulness of the comic and instead just tell each other their hilarious porn names. Which is, well, probably the best way to cope with this shit.

Okay, I know I heard this before, I just didn't do the connection between the "porn name algorithm" and this comic. And this makes this comic one of those that get ruined if you think more than 5 seconds about it.

I didn't know the pet name + street name joke so it took two readings to figure out that there must be a joke around the world about that and that this must therefore be hilarious. Too bad it wasn't funny.

Also, Randall seems to be feeling insecure lately as he keeps making references to his older comics. This one was referring in the alt text to the Bobby Tables one(which is actually a good comic), 881 was the <3 one (not funny), and sometime since 800 was the "It works, bitches!" one (also not funny). It's as if he feels the need to remind us "Hey, guys! I'm the guy who used to be funny one third* of the time. I wasn't always this bad."

"Fido 53rd" would be just as (completely in-)effective at keeping a kid out of pron as "Mister Rogers".

Fact check time:Rogers St in Cambridge MA is about 6 blocks long. It's mostly parking lots, warehouses and offices. There are a couple buildings that might have residential apartments on the east end. I'd bet the apartments are occupied by MIT students or young, childless professionals. Nobody is raising kids on that particular Rogers St.

I got the "joke" right away and still didn't think it was funny. It was just sort of bland. And it's not like any real porn stars actually use that naming system, so I don't see how it would keep a kid out of porn.

My name would be Dragon Collingdale. When I was a kid I loved Secret of NIHM so my first pet was a white cat named Dragon, like the cat from the movie/book.

Great new game guys! If you take your email password as your first name and your email address as your second name, you get your Rapper name! Mine is 'dj_jazzy jefferson(@titmouse.com)'. See, it really works!

"....I thought that might go over your head :( Explain the joke corner: I was implying that you have an encyclopaedic* knowledge of child pornography and therefore if Suiseiseki was a Lolicon star you would have heard of them.

@Anon130: Chaos gods are more like Gods of Fuckin' You Up 'Cause They Can. They aren't gods OF chaos; they are greater demons literally made out of primordial chaos energy that have infected millions of humanoid creatures to the point of building empires in our universe for themselves, to further their aforementioned goals of Fucking You Up 'Cause They Can.

...Which is to say I'm way too cool to have 3000 points of Necron forces somewhere in my room... >.>

They are not gods of any sort. They are Platonic Kakadaemons.Abandon your pop culture-centric world view and embrace one of Classical Antiquity.You'll thank me when you are the centre of attention at your next cocktail party.And sporting a Mary Quant frock couldn't hurt.

well if you're giving out advice....my girlfriend wants to peg me. that means she wants to use a strap-on dildo on me, like in the ass. i don't really like the idea but she seems really keen. should i do it? also, if anyone's done it before, what's it like?

Goodness gracious. Do you eat with that same mouth? And why would you call jesus christ a tool? Had you said "Jesus Christ, ALTF, shut the fuck up about grammar you tool." I would have understood that you meant I was the tool.

The way he worded it didn't indicate that he was talking to Jesus either, since there was no comma after his name.

No, he's telling us a story. Once upon a time, Jesus Christ did something that would be remembered forever. What did he do? Well, he shut the fuck up about something. What was that thing he shut the fuck up about? Something the locals referred to as "grammar you tool." The meaning has been lost on us in these modern times, but scholars are working around the clock to resolve the issue of what "grammar you tool" is and why Jesus himself didn't even want to talk about it.

Buzz dahling,The rule to which you implicitly refer is a general rule and is not applicable in this case. I am not using the single quotation marks to denote a verbal or written quote. I am using them as a surrogate for italics as I can't be arsed to learn how to code them 'round here.I could be mistaken though. The Queen's English is my fourth language and my OED Style Guide could very well be rife with a bit too much Rule Britannia for our North American sensitivities.Thanks for the tip though.

It's actually not; merely a nickname. Despite the Buzzitude of Buzz Aldrin, and the existence of several other notable Buzzes, no one has ever tried naming their kid that; or, at least, so BehindTheName.com and Wikipedia would have us believe. I guess those people tended to go for "Neil" instead.

Why is this website so obsessed with Randall and his life? Why insult him on a personal level every chance you get? I don't understand it. And if xkcd sucks so much, why don't you just stop following it and get a life? Is he so important to you that you must post 2-page long write-ups about his crappy comics?

"Why is this website so obsessed with Randall and his life? Why insult him on a personal level every chance you get? I don't understand it. And if xkcd sucks so much, why don't you just stop following it and get a life? Is he so important to you that you must post 2-page long write-ups about his crappy comics?"

You haven't been on the Internet very long, have you? I'm being generous with that assumption because the alternative is that you are less intelligent than a can of Spam.

Let it be known on this day that Greg F has changed all of our lives with his scathing criticism and piercing perception. I am so ashamed I have gone on so long without realizing that I am wasting my life away here and that I could simply ignore xkcd, which I also now think is the great American Fiction of our time.

Hey Greg!

In case you haven't noticed the blog is 2 comics behind you douche nozzle, it really puts a damper on that we should all get lives argument don'it?

I'm guessing none of you guys are married or have kids, because there's no way you'd be doing this if that was the case. It's just sad to see you all getting your 'fun' by trying to bully someone who probably isn't aware you exist.

What does family have to do with one's desire to criticize? And since when are critics bullies? Since you disagree with them?

I guess I don't quite understand what you mean by your last sentence. What's wrong with taking 5-10 minutes a day to review and react to a bad webcomic? It's moderately enjoyable, and if Randy really doesn't know about us (he does), no one gets hurt.

It just seems like this blog is giving Randy legitimacy. The implicit message it provides is that Randy sucks but he's awesome enough to warrant making a critical blog in his honor. Really? You guys think he's great enough to discuss? I don't even care for the guy.

There's no discussion over whether or not xkcd is legitimate. It's probably the most popular web comic there is. And when something that terrible becomes so popular, it's only reasonable that it receives criticism.

rog·erinterj.Used especially in radio communications to indicate receipt of a message.tr.v. rog·ered, rog·er·ing, rog·ers Chiefly British Vulgar SlangTo have sexual intercourse with (a woman). Used of a man.

Maybe awesome is the wrong word. Let's try: you guys think he's important enough to discuss? Like I said, this blog by its nature grants xkcd (and by extension Randall) legitimacy. The more publicity you give something, good or bad, the more you actually help it. I wonder how many new viewers xkcd gets just as a result of this blog.

@asshole using Eff Greg as his handle

It's one thing to give it criticism. It's another thing to obsessively follow every move the guy makes in search of every negative quality you can find. It would be like Rupert Murdoch launching a 24-hour Obama Sucks network.

xkcd had "legitimacy," if that's what you want to call it, long before this blog existed. It's not uncommon for tech sites to link to comics, for teachers to post printouts, for strips to be emailed around, etc. Also, FWIW, I'd honestly expect more people to come here as a result of reading xkcd than for people to go to xkcd as a result of reading this.

As for the second part of your post, you seem to completely miss what we're doing here. I don't know what you think "obsessively following someone around" is, but I'm pretty sure "reading a strip three times a week and spending 15-30 minutes writing a response" doesn't qualify. Heck, have you SEEN how Rob posts? Most days he couldn't care less about reacting to the comic, for better or for worse. Last month was composed largely of guest posts simply because we couldn't trust Rob to be timely or topical with his reviews.

@Eff Greg: I think he thinks Rob/Raven crafted shorts are non-fiction and we actually observed these?

Re XKCDsucks -> XKCD fans.... what? How do you get to an ____ sucks site without knowing about ____ already? The only solution is that people out there think XKCDsucks is entertaining enough as a stand-alone medium that XKCD isn't even required anymore, and, honestly? Have you read anything in this comment thread?

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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